Friday, 6 May 2011

BROADSWORD QUIZ (Level "Difficult"): So how did Uncle Sam take down bin Laden?

Everyone gets to theorise... let's see how far out of the box you can go. There is a strict 400-word limit on your post. Please stick to that and don't have a wonderful theory shut out just because it was 10 words over the limit.

52 comments:

seal team six under JSOC is briefed hours before the op (before they were training for months without knowing about the target). Since last few months drones and sats have been tracking one of Obl's couriers and finally they get some clues.determine high probability of obl’s presence in the house. CIA plans the mission (NSA confirms no presence of telephone or internet in the house) = some stealth helos with apache guards come into pak from jalalabad (may have disabled pak radars or just bribed the people manning them). Within minutes finish the op and leave with obl and huge set of data

Not right to say that Pak didnt know where he was. Only sections of the ISI knew. Rogue elements/Top oficers/ Pasha....whoever. Point is even in ISI, "very few" were in the know.

Probably there was a "front" for the building, as if some other officer was living there, or maybe some other office was there, with some rooms at different level perhaps, cordoned off.

Situation is perfect for Pak. Posibly all planned!

1. Hand him over to Yanks, in such a manner, that they (Pak) are not perceived to hand him over. Yank covert mission bypasses Pak to get Osama! Isnt it believable? Since Pak has so much egg on their face with this.

2. You give something to get something. Yanks get excuse to start drawdown from Afghanistan, Obama get re-election plank, Pak gets Afghanistan.

The future is anyone's guess.

Pak will sabre rattle against softer foes to get perceived pride back. How is anyone's guess. From our side, will be good to become a fortress. And plug loose commnents by Army/AF chiefs that we can also do the same. Media is equally to be educated.

1. Stealth choppers leave from Afghanistan with Seal team. Back up Chinooks from PAF Tarbela base. Needless to say PAF was no informed where the chinooks went.

2. inform PAF that "some" choppers coming in to tarbela base as routine. Divert into OBl compound, blow up things. Tell PAF choppers landed under emergency and send Chinooks from Tarbela. PAF, needless to say does not suspect a thing as USAF flights over Pakistan is routine.

3. Chinooks fly back to Afghanistan. Pack OBL and send another flight over to aircraft carrier. Again PAF is informed that it is a routine flight.

4. Inform Pakistan after the aircraft are outside Pak airspace.

If the chopper was not lost, the ops would have been hidden from world view and US would have declared that OBL was found near Afghan border. The whole Pakistan's hand in the pie came about because the chopper went down.

I know this, since the SEAL team consulted with me prior to launching the mission:

US puts in a routine request to fly a transport chopper from Afganisthan to a pak base close to Islamabad that already has marines and CIA operatives. The request is granted and the chinook heads out with 4 stealthy backahwks in close formation carrying 2 SEAL teams. Having just refueled close to the border they have the legs to get to OBL. Close to the target a stealthy B2 like aircraft that took off from a US base in Afganistan starts jamming the near by radars while the stealthy hawks slip out of formation and head over to the OBL mansion. Heavily loaded and the altitude of the target cause one of them to make a hard landing. One of the SEAL teams secure the area and the choppers while the other storms the house. The crashed Hawk is destroyed with some thermites and the remaining choppers carry the team and their trophy out across the border back to Afganistan with a stop across the border to refuel. At the Afgan base they take some quick snaps and OBL is loaded onto a C2 and flown straight out to USS Carl Vinson along with the SEAL teams.

first came the two black helicopters (he he), sound suppressed so that they couldn't hear them until they were on top of them, inside were the 24 assault team members. one crashed during the descent. closely following (so that they couldn't be heard until the shooting started) two chinooks while a rq-170 was flying recon.the stormtroopers stormed the bulding, killing the guards, osama (sleeping i think) and a woman, used as a human shield. then they checked the house for documents. the shooting part lasted for ~20-25min while the whole op was about 40min.when they finished searching for documents, they loaded osama's body (and only his) onto a heli (either the stealth one or a chinook), destroyed the crashed heli with thermine and flown away into the morning sun.

I guess Jawahiri gets impressed with the so-called peoples democratic revolutions of Arab countries and wants to infiltrate in them and collaborate more and more to further the interests of AQ. OBL calls this as shear opportunism and revisionism and an act of playing in to the hands of US. OBL gets isolated within AQ and becomes a liability to all concerned especially to the Pakistan, ISI and AQ.

Meanwhile US is zeroing in to OBL through its own efforts and understands that it can go in but can not return back like Carter’s rescue mission in Eastern Iran during 1979.

ISI takes the lead and can silently eliminate OBL but feels that handing over him to BHO will be more useful for elections and other mutual longstanding relationships. ISI agrees for free entry and safe return of the Helicopters. Perhaps it is also agreed in advance that OBL is to be silenced for ever as he is of no more use against the AQ.

America's beauty is not that they have the best electronics intelligence technology but the way they are able to analyse, collate and identify specific information from the enormous data generated from it, in order to come up with some relevant names/aliases; besides they had plenty of practice doing this in the cold war. The truth behind the intelligence operation may never be known and what may be put out in the media may never be the truth. But without a doubt 90% of the battle was won in the commando operation because of intelligence breakthroughs. I have a few observations I would like to make.1. Why didn't The U.S, Which has always used Drones to attack high value targets, use it to attack OBL? Ans- they wanted to make a statement to the world and the terror org that they can come any time anywhere and destroy you, I don't think they were least bothered about collateral damage because they never thought of it before.2. On the intelligence part - once they knew where OBL was located they took their time because surprise was on their side, they would decide when and how they would take him out. I believe they were sitting on him for 6 months – 1 year because there was more to be learnt with him alive than dead his couriers could be followed into A.Q terror org to see where the rabbit hole led them (suddenly drone attacks became more deadly and found its targets). I also believe that the U.S would not put a single asset (Soldiers and Hardware) down on the ground without confirming that OBL was actually inside the place he was supposed to be, on the date they were to carry out the Op, hence there had to be someone in the compound or the house to tip them off. 3. When U.S finally decided to take him out they not only had all the time in the world to plan for the Navy Seals - Breach, Entry and Retrieval Op. But also planned for the minutest detail and contingency after the operation was done; like - what they would do with OBL alive /dead and other prisoners, burial of the dead, imprisonment, justification for the Op, media fallout and PR exercise. Leave it to the Yanks to plan it to the nth degree. Finally the timing of this operation is very suspicious to say the least. This Operation has been carried out at a time when U.S's super power shine is waning, U.S is about to withdraw troops without achieving their set goals in Afghanistan, U.S - Pak relations at the lowest point since the time of war on terror alliance; especially after ISI chief had just visited the U.S to patch things up or was it a fallout and finally how opportune for the U.S president Barak Obama; who had recently stated he was going to stand up for re-election in the next presidential elections. It seems there are no coincidences in this world, only the inevitable.

Although I am not a well versed in these matters as a lay man my feeling is the US may have known location of OBL for quite some time and PAK may have anticipated US knowledge. The trick US played is in confronting PAK with this info and letting it know there would be hell to pay if they were to miss him this time around all in a very short period of time giving no time to PAK to react else they would have at least shifted him to some cave. The US just does not trust PAK to move him to convenient position. Carrot in this deal is US would not look deeply into why OBL was in Abbotabad, there would be lot of theater and words but no action on PAK.

Osama dies from Kidney disease related events.( was getting Rx from nearby MH Abbotabad) ISI Chief tries to leverage now useless Osama by flying to US and scheming up daring raid by US. Drives up Obama points, gets rid of Pakistan's headache of Osama care, Army is in the clear as ISI takes the fall guy role, US continues to get rid of Al Queda

There is a description in the Swedish news paper explaining the role of the sniffer dog that hunted down BL in the compound. Here is the link.http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/binladin/article12988217.ab

Enemy number one is not dead. He was traded by the ISI in august of last year, this elaborate plan of taking him out was orchestrated to show the world he is dead.

He is actually in the Canadian mountains in a secret CIA facility.

This elaborate hoax was to show to the public that enemy number is dead (closer to the time of re-election time). At this moment they are interrogating the 50+ year old man and have plans for him, they will study him like a lab rat, after he has divulged every single source, the drones will be busy little bees taking out targets after targets, anything to prevent nuclear Armageddon (the believers getting their hands on a nuclear weapon)

I believe they will dissect his brain and run him through various tests, we eventually either end up sleeping with the fishes or frozen till a time they can effectively clone him and then set him free likea terminator to hunt down and kill ever single Taliban, starting with the one eyed Mullah.

The Spy Master has now realised that the bargaining chip which he has traded in has already been utilised to the full. He will also conclude that the American can no longer be contained as drone strikes willcontinue with total disregard of their sovereignty. The Spy Master will secretly tell a group of militants the secret location of two fully assembled nukes, meanwhile their will be a power struggle between the spy master and the chief of army staff for the death of democracy and to be the supreme commander of a country which has seen more coups than elections.

The two nukes will be shared between the army of the pure and the Taliban. One will attempt to smuggle the weapon into the land of the infidels. The other group will attempt to strike at the heart of the nation, its capital city which is not only home to 14 million people but is also the seat of power.

When Ajai met Geelani, there were some confusion in his house. Geelani's relative from Atto.bad complained that his laundry man have changed his dress with someone's and the dress had some strange laundry markings. Ajai, who was there at that time, on seeing the marking realised that it could be Bin's dress. This could be because Ajai has stayed in Bin's abandoned house once and might have noticed the markings in Bin's left over dresses there. Ajai kept quiet and passed this information to RAW when he came to India. RAW got further info from the laundry man and that was passed down to CIA who verified that info. A joint team of operatives from RAW and SEALs went there and took Bin. One of the helios used was a Dhruv with some patch work. As it made some funny sound after some time during onward journey, it was demolished and was not used on the way back. That patch work is being analysed as a stealth feature all around the world. It is the crucial info from Ajai that let US to Bin's house. There are rumours that satellites photos of that house was shown to Ajai to find any markings on the dress which were left in the open terrace for drying.

It can also be understood that one Helicopter was intentionally dropped and blasted by SEALS at Abbottabad. Otherwise the operation was going completely silent to the world and the world would have easily taken that Osama was caught somewhere in the Afghanistan. With this Pak and ISI would have got scot-free and USA was to be blamed for not searching OBL properly even in Afghanistan.

The blasting Helicopter has clearly brought everything to the light and turned the tables against the Pak & ISI and they are not in good mood.

Now BHO has got all the praises for capturing OBL deep within the Pakistan against the wishes of ISI at the loss of a chopper.

It was April 13th when General shuja pasha was called in America for interrogation.He was shown the Gitmo videos of all his old pals Khalid shaikh Mohammad and Ramzi yousef and then he was produced the evidence against him in all terrorist activities particularly for 26/11 and told that there is an arrest warrant against and given a choice to go to GITMO like facility and face the punishment all Gitmo inhabitant. He got severe pain in abdomen and was sitting on the toilet for almost 1 hour as his loose motions would just not stop.He came out and gave exact address of osama in Abbottabad and thus was released.He was again told if he tells anyone in Pakistan that this info is leaked he would be severely punished. The whole operation was planned and and then executed to impeccable perfection by the brave navy seals.

I think everybody who follows strategic news knows that Pakistan treats the Islamic militants as its strategic assets and OBL was truly its golden goose as because of him Pakistan was getting billions of dollars worth of aid (freebies) every year. OBL was kept in one of ISI's safehouses in one of their least vulnerable towns with good medical facilities as there was speculation that OBL has been ailing for a while and needed routine dialysis. Abbottabad was a very suitable town considering it had a big military cantonment so he was housed within the cantonment area within a few blocks of military compound. They do the same to other high ranking members of D-Company, Taliban Shura and in the past have only handed over some of them whom they think of as no longer useful to them in return for some concessions or aid from US. The complication of this is that ISI can not confirm that they indeed were actively sheltering OBL in a safe house under active protection, and if they did then it only not only make them a rogue organization of a pariah state but would also make them look even more incompetent among their own people.

Having known this, all it needed was to find out where would OBL be kept which is in a safe area, away from the border and has good medical facilities. This was wonderfully done by US intelligence and helped them narrow it down.

An alive OBL rather than a dead one would be a treasure trove of information about Taliban and the rogue Pakistan Intelligence and it is safe to assume that there are ways to get even the last ounce of information from somebody even if the person in question doesn't want to share it. So it doesn't make sense to kill him. I think once they had found the target in place, their objective was not to kill OBL but to capture him while at the same time making sure that everybody in the house who was to be left alive should get the distinct impression that OBL was killed/executed in front of their eyes while in reality he was being captured. Once the inmates of the house are convinced that OBL was executed in front of their eyes, rest of the world will buy it as well even if US doesn't produce OBL's body. They did it very efficiently and quickly while killing all the adult males living within the compound and making sure that one of the OBL's children sees that OBL was being executed. Once it was done, they whisked away a tranquillized OBL to Afghanistan where he is being kept. Flying him to Arabian sea would have required them to fly again over Pakistan's airspace which was very risky until the news of OBL's death (capture) breaks out. A dummy funeral service of OBL was indeed held on US warship, as when you tie all the lose ends you tend to do it well or do not do it.

So in a nutshell, we will not know for a few years (or maybe never) if OBL was captured alive or dead and would probably be executed and buried incognito in an unmarked grave once he spills all the beans. OBL is a dead man walking and his funeral has already been performed in the Arabian sea. Wonderful peace of spywork and it doesn't get better than this.

I am not sure that OBL is dead. I am sure US would want to interrogate him, and find out as much as possible from him. He could very well be in US custody. Nobody has seen the footage of OBL being shot OR the photos of dead OBL. Even Saddam Hussain was captured and not killed.

Everybody knows that Pak has harboured OBL for quite some time, so it is not that damaging for Pak to be seen as harbouring terrorists. What is damaging to Pak is the fact that people there don't like this war-on-terror. Its a much bigger headache for Pak establishment to be seen complicit in the killing of OBL.

I am sure Pak govt secretly acquiesced to trading OBL. Thats why the choppers could come in without any problem. All we have seen is the wreckage of the tail-section of a so called modified black-hawk. It could have been planted there to make the world believe that the seals came in a stealth chopper... The scrambling of F-16s, as the Pak govt says was done, could also have been to create this very impression...

Lots of luck and a series of welcome breaks as happens in all military operations. You would be familiar with what I'am saying. Good intel, meticulous planning and rigorous training - all come to a nought without good fortune.

US could have employed "Suter air borne network" to silence Pakistan's electronic systems. To evade the human eyes they chose a full dark night, used MH-60k stealth helicopters and shut the electric grid 1 hour before the operation.The steps might be :1. Locate the possible radar locations from remote control center.2. Direct the Suter to send false signals or corrupt the electronic systems and conduct a reco to verify if it is working. No wonder India should have its own radar system.3. If possible hijack and take control of the ADS so that radars are turned away while the black hawks are going in. So there will be no records.4. Have traditional weapons as back-up if Suter fails. Some where F-16/F-15E would've been ready to pounce. Confirmed by the US press release.5. Looks like Suter should have numbed/corrupted/hijacked the systems that process signals received from Chinese Satellites guarding the army/ISI town. 6. Employ NOE to reach the target.7. In-spite of all the pre-cautions a PAK defense personal would've called. Sensing that US hurried out of the location. As US used stealth helos PAK F-16S could've missed them. 8. Black hawks safely enter into Jalalabad and transport dead OBL to USS Carl Vinson.

The only theory I have is WRT "the stealth helicoptor". I think they used regular black hawks, but to give cover to PAK, they made up a model of a stealth heli and purposely semi destroy it. Thus PAK can say that yanks came in a stealth heli and we did not see it. While in reality, the only assistance from PAK was the OK to use their air-space. That's all. I cannot imagine that during a 40 min operation, not a single chopper or a vehicle from the PAK military school or local police force even bothered to show-up. So, in my opinion allowing the US to use the air space was the only cooperation from PAK, and use of a face stealth helicopter was to provide cover to the PAK govt. Other than that, there were bullets flying, mostly from US Seals, that killed 4 persons at the Osama Home, including Osama.

Osama died some time back on his own probably. Would've been futile to acknowledge his death as such then as would not have been able to pursue many other 'targets' (people & geo politik). Wait for an appropriate moment to announce his execution and kill several birds without throwing a stone!

President orders the seals to capture OBL alive and bring hm back to Afghanistan. The operation was supposed to be secret/clandestine. To ensure navy seals safe exit, additional 2 helicopters are later sent to aid the already 2 executing operation OBL in abbotabad. If the operation is successful, then USA would later convey to the world that OBL is captured in Afghanistan and tell the world that operation Afghanistan is over for USA and bring back the soldiers. The idea was also not the expose Pakistan double standards to the world. However, the operation was not totally successful and to make it clear, it was a horror, with one navy seal helicopter downed, and the possibility of Pakistan air force acting quick to the downed helicopter, navy seals are directed to kill OSL in abbotabad. To add fuel, Obama now had ruined a perfect exit strategy from Afghanistan and Pakistan double standards are also exposed. This means, Pakistan would go crazy diplomatically which it did and the relationship would take a hit for a while, which it has.

Obama orders navy seals to capture and bring him back to Afghanistan alive. This would give USA a chance to tell the world that they captured OBL in Afghanistan, minimize the relationship damage with Pakistan and a prefect pretext to get out of Afghanistan with honor. To his horror, when the navy seal went with 2 helicopters, one was taken down. To back the existing helicopter, 2 more helis were sent. Meanwhile, a decision is taken in the presidential office to kill to OBL, so minimize Pakistan chance to screw the plan. All in all, the mission was not successful where navy seals executed plan B, it also gave USA one more headache of destroying the downed heli and a very good chance of jeopardizing USA/Pakistan relationship. Again, its a major screw up!!